The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from North Carolina to revive a requirement that abortion providers show and describe an ultrasound to the pregnant woman before she has an abortion.

The justices on Monday left in place an appeals court decision that said the 2011 North Carolina law was "ideological in intent" and violated doctors' free-speech rights.

The North Carolina law would have required abortion providers to display and describe the ultrasound even if the woman refused to look and listen — a mandate that the court found particularly troublesome.

The Guttmacher Institute says North Carolina is among 23 states, mostly in the South and the Midwest, that passed laws dealing with the administration of ultrasounds by abortion providers.

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